Rye and Rye (Borodinsky and Tzitzel)

Tzitzel is to Borodinsky as Comfort Zone is to Total Lack of Comfort Zone. But still, it's out there. It has a cool name. I like rye. So why not. I followed Andy's Borodinsky formula here[1] as much as possible given different flours and malt. To make myself feel more comfortable I made Tzitzel at the same time. In making what is for me a very complex formula, I felt similar to how I felt the first time I made Hamelman's Pain Au Levain - over my head. Yesterday when I was making the rye sour for Tzitzel, a different rye sour for Borodinsky and my first time ever scald, I got everything built and put together. Then I happened to glance at Andy's formula and realized that I had misread the amount of rye sour, by looking at the result of his first build instead of his second. This necessitated a lengthy interaction with my spreadsheet, while I tried to figure out how to make the necessary adjustments. Bottom line was I had enough sour for only 40% of the scald. I'm glad I caught it in time before I mixed more than twice as much scald as required in with the sour. I thought that I would be able to mix the scald and sour together last night to make the sponge before I went to bed, but I was waiting for the rye sour to froth - see Juergen's excellent picture here[2]. I know from having made Russian Rye that if you don't wait for the froth, you might as well just use the result for its cementatious properties, instead of wasting the energy to bake it. So I let it go overnight, and then mixed the sour and scald in the morning. Since I had a fairly small quantity of paste (this stuff is not dough) relative to the pan, the result after baking for over an hour looked like a brick, and of course nothing like Andy's beautiful samples. However, it did not taste like a brick. To go back to my years of absorbing ad copy through the ether, I would say that this bread is BURSTING WITH FLAVOR (Juicy Fruit Gum - circa 1967). No really, absolutely bursting with flavor. I would hope to be able to make more photogenic loaves as time goes on, but for now, I'll be consoled by the taste. I ate a piece of this with peanut butter for dinner. Nothing else required.

Crumb shots: Tzitzel and Borodinsky

Tzitzel Rye Sour just before mixing the dough:

Borodinsky sponge just before mixing:

I used whole rye for the Borodinsky and for the small amount of wheat flour used Sir Lancelot high gluten because I ran out of KA Bread Flour while mixing up the Tzitzel. I used malt syrup to replace Red Malt - best I could do for now. I followed ITJB Old School Jewish Deli Rye as modified for Tzitzel (page 74.)